Along with a recent growing interest in environmental issues, move to paperless offices has rapidly been promoted. For this purpose, there is conventionally known a document management system which reads paper documents accumulated in binders by using a scanner, converts the read images into portable document format (to be abbreviated as “PDF” hereinafter) data, and accumulates them in an image storage device as a database.
An image processing system is also known, which reads a paper document by using a scanner and executes image processing such as OCR (Optical Character Recognition) and edge extraction for characters, graphics, and tables on the document so that the characters, graphics, and tables can be generated as vector data (e.g., Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-342408).
In the above-described conventional image processing system to generate vector data, however, if a user wants to confirm objects in a vectorized image, he/she must visually confirm the vectorized portions by using a display device.
In an inexpensive image processing system (e.g., a digital multifunction peripheral (MFP) such as a copying machine or facsimile apparatus having a multifunction) which can hardly incorporate an expensive display device, vector data converted from image information is temporarily transferred to a personal computer (PC) connected to the image processing system. The vector data is displayed on the PC or printed by a printer. However, when the vector data is simply displayed on the PC or printed by a printer, only an image close to the original image is displayed or printed. Portions converted into vector data cannot be discriminated.
Additionally, when a vectorization process is executed, information such as the process type and process amount cannot be obtained.